These
are Fred Forest’s very first works on video. They were
produced using Sony Portapak ½ inch black-and-white
camera donated to him by the manufacturer. Forest went on
to use this equipment in his work for over 10 years.

A
precursor of Sociological Art’s investigations into
everyday environments, “The Telephone Booth” was
shot in real time from the third-floor window of the artist’s
apartment in L’Haÿ les Roses. The object of the
video was the drab suburban neighborhood’s only public
telephone booth and the local residents who used it during
the course of the experiment, whom the artist filmed in relationship
to the nearby tree that dwarfed the telephone booth like a
giant antenna.

“The
Wall of Arles” is case study in the curiosity of pedestrians
in busy city street, attracted by some mysterious events that
seem to going on behind a wooden barricade.